The “binder check” process for the Illinois Libertarian Party statewide challenge has been finished for almost a week, and the results are that the Libertarian Party has approximately 33,000 valid signatures. 25,000 are needed. Nevertheless, the Illinois Republican Party has hired college students to ring the doorbells of voters who signed the petition, asking if the voter “really” signed the petition. The challengers to the petition are now trying to invalidate all sheets circulated by certain petitioners.

In 1998, the “binder check” process also resulted in a finding that the Libertarian Party statewide petition had enough valid signatures, yet the party was still kept off the ballot when, afterwards, the State Board of Elections eliminated all the sheets circulated by certain petitioners.

It is possible evidence of this activity will be brought into the pending Illinois Green Party ballot access case, which will be heard August 13.

10 Responses

I hope the Libertarians will sue the Illinois Republican Party for obstructing voting rights…and when the Democrats do it to the Greens, they should be sued as well…nonviolent civil disobedience has a glorious history in the U.S.

Well, this shows that the Republicans are getting desperate, as are the Democrats on their front, and in the process are starting to dig themselves a bit of a hole. The Libertarians and Constitution Partiers ought to join in the lawsuit (and they probably will at this rate), the three minor parties combined might have a chance of getting the court to call these ballot access laws the unconstitutional nonsense that they really are.
I wonder…are you going to be giving testimony in favor of the minor parties in this case, Richard Winger? I remember you doing so in the LeAlan Jones case last year, and that seemed to help towards getting him on the ballot for that race.

Gosh, as someone whose collected thousands of signatures one of the frequent retorts I hear from both those who sign and those who decline is a concern that giving one’s name and address on a petition will somehow get them on a mailing list or A VISIT BY SOMEONE.
So how intimidating that in Illinois someone really IS showing up at their door! If word of this spreads, as it’s sure to, then future petitions (for a party or a cause) will have just a bit harder time.
Clever of the Republicans (and Dems) to try to lessen voter choice in such a way that even if they loose this signature challenge they at least gain in spreading misgivings with the public over petitioning itself.

I hope all of the Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates will remain on the ballot, since the majority of their candidates agree with the republican platform more than the Republicans agree with it.

So, I collected a few pages of those signatures… about 10 or so…
Everyone in my house is a registered voter, and signed the pet… I truly hope they show up at our door.
They may not like the resulting altercation that will ensue… but I’ll enjoy the hell out of it.
Then they can head over to most of my neighbors, who also signed, and who will have even less tolerance for being pestered by by these punks than I will.

I’m almost hoping that they somehow confuse the Libertarian and Green Petitions (I both signed the Green Party’s petition and helped gather some signatures for it) and show up at my door. I’m actually thinking up a nice angry and theatrical speech in my head. I’m a college student too (SIU), and I’ve been supporting more voter choice and democratic elections, and then these…fellows decide they want to do the exact opposite. It really ticks me off.
Good luck, and I hope you and those at your house give them hell (non-violently preferably, but a nice shouting match would suffice) if they do show up at your place.

The Illinois Libertarians have had a case in court since 2012 to level the ballot access across all parties. At the time, all the 3rd parties active in the state were invited. They declined. As for the current new suit, we were not invite and you can’t really just jump in.

As for myself, I am an active member of the Illinois LP and a chapter secretary. I collected hundreds of signatures, trusting these people knew if they were registered to vote.

The Republicans are accusing us of fraud and deception. They are harassing and intimidating our supporters. They’re sending around paid college students to contact people we told would never have their information used for any other purpose than validation at the board of elections.